


Shattered

by liveandlove1989



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 17:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18721831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liveandlove1989/pseuds/liveandlove1989
Summary: "Liara slips her hand along Shepard's, until their fingers lock and the blue transfers from skin to glove. A shared remembrance of pain." One-shot during ME3. Angst warning.





	Shattered

Blood dries along the creases of her palms, sticky and wet and smelling of death. Blue. It's not the first time it's been there, but it's the first time it's been there for this reason.

Next to her, Liara shakes. Not visibly, but Shepard feels it where their shoulders touch. She wishes she could sum it up as the rocking of the Kodiak but the horrific glint in the Asari's eyes and the way she clenches and unclenches her fists tells an unspoken truth. Shepard remembers the first time she saw husks back on Eden Prime all those years ago and knows Liara's disbelief is earned.

She looks away, wishes she had the strength to stand because even if Liara's shaking is normal she doesn't want to feel it. Not when she has so much more to regret. Shepard closes her eyes and listens to the sound of her own breathing, almost too loud reverberating in her helmet.

She thinks of Samara. Of Falere. Of Rila. She thinks of how she was too late and too slow and too unprepared. She thinks of the banshees that nearly overwhelmed them, and how the Ardat Yakshi monastary had to be destroyed.

What draws her back to the present is the sudden warmth along the back of her hand. She opens her eyes and looks over and finds that her gaze is met by Liara head on, endless cerulean looking misty and cold. Pleading. She wishes her tongue knew how to say the words her brain seemed incapable of forming.

Liara slips her hand along Shepard's, until their fingers lock and the blue transfers from skin to glove. A shared remembrance of pain. Hateful, spiteful, wasteful. Shepard wishes she could pull away, spare Liara from all of it. She only has herself to blame for the mess she's pulled everyone else into. Liara especially doesn't deserve any of it.

But she doesn't pull away. And she doesn't speak. She watches the way Liara's throat bobs as she swallows. She fights the urge to hold her breath and see how long it would take for her to die a second time. She tries to smile but it comes out as a grimace and she doesn't think she'll ever not hate herself for it.

Liara swallows again and something along her face shifts from pain to nothingness. Empty. She parts her lips to breath through her mouth and then looks away.

Shepard has the aching suspicion she's just witnessed her lover's heart break.


End file.
